Day One... that seemed forever...

*WRITTEN 9/3*

The day before my flight I luckily got to even spend some last minute time with one of my best friends Margo, whose one of the few friends I feel I've gotten closer to this summer. We spent some shopping time together with my mom and then later we came home for pizza and and homemade ice cream cake. We watched I Love You, Man which was pretty good, but later watched Last House on the Left, which is a disturbingly creepy movie. It did a pretty good job for a remake, even though I've never seen the original. Also, I got a new haircut that day which to me is definitely different, it even had me kind of iffy on it at first, but I like it a lot now.

So I woke up the morning of my flight around Noon, and spent the next two hours getting last minute things done, including saying goodbyes and packing what last minute things I could fit into my suitcase. Which at this point felt like the total pounds of these two suitcases was well over 100. The actual limit for the flight was 80 pounds, and we were worrying it was going to go over for sure costing me $40-50 bucks.

I spent a little bit in the last few minutes before heading off to O'Hare airport with my mom, saying goodbye to my two cousins Kristi and Holly, and my brother and sister Nick and Lauren. It seems like I got closer to them as well this summer, so it seemed like I was leaving like before as I had done with IU Bloomington, but seemed a little worse. I know this is going to be what it's like when I leave home for sure and live on my own. It's a sad feeling, but I know this is a preemptive effort in making my way to be successful and independent. I know I won't just cut my family out in any way, but to know I can do things on my own is a nice indicator of my status in life.

Around 4pm-ish, mom and I arrived in O'Hare and got me settled in as I checked in. Thank God, because the bags that we thought were over 100lbs were in fact, somehow, 50lbs and 20lbs. No extra payments added it seemed like everything was running smoothly, just anxiousness set in slowly then. My father called me and I couldn't even really talk to him. My mother and I ate some McDonald's there and had a chat about life and how I felt about past instances and future endeavors.

I realize it's really nice to know I have such a good relationship with my mother, because she's been there for everything and her being there to send me off was a really nice sentiment. In fact, giving her the first hug goodbye was the hardest and I started to cry. I've never left the country. I've never felt this far a disconnect from home. I can't just call my mom and be like "Hey mom, where'd you put my socks?" Next, I gave her my phone (by the way, I have no phone at the moment. I call forwarded all my cell phone calls to my home phone, so leave a message if it's important and my mom will let me know) and said my final goodbyes. I left for the security gate and my mom shot one last picture of me.

And here it was, me alone with no connection with anything but myself. It was a little nerve racking, but I felt I handled it rather well. My flight gate for Aer Lingus E122 wasn't that far and I didn't have to wait more than 30 minutes to even get on and settled in my seat when we left at 6:50pm. I thought this entire "8 hour" flight was going to be something of a boring, hermit journey. Luckily, this 6 and a half hour flight was an enjoyable, yet long, nice flight. My seat neighbor, who introduced himself was Felix Mendez, a videoographer/camera person working on a documentary in Ireland for the next 11 days was rather nice and we had a few talks about music and film.

Other than a nice neighbor, this flight was the first giant plane I ever flew on. It included flat touch screens in the back of the seats with movies, television shows, music with options for making playlists almost like an mp3 player, games you can play with a remote control (that served as the movie remote as well) and flight information including where we were currently flying through GPS. It was all free, and we also got 2 meals included, for dinner chicken and rice with a little salad and little cheesecake slice, and breakfast of a croissant with cheese and ham.



During the flight, I watched Ghost of Girlfriends' Past and Watchmen (for the second time, mainly because the length of the movie made the flight seem quicker). They both are good movies, though I realized in watching these that they were edited for almost everything, except for violence. If you're going to take out language and sex, why not go for the triple threat. I don't understand why it's okay to expose your kids to people being blown apart, but not to hear or see the things they see and hear with their friends. You can only keep so many things for so long anyway...

On the final landing, I was rather excited that seeing the greenness of Ireland was as exciting as seeing it in a movie, even though it was a rather gray day of rain. Getting off the plane, I realized right away the smell was different. It's like you could definitely sense the cleanliness of it, but also like you could sense the plant life in the smells. It's like you could smell the green! :) Next, however, after waiting for a half hour getting through the passport checking station, I was told that I didn't get a full visa for Dublin and I had a month to go to the Garda (Irish police, pronounced Gar-dee) and pay 150 Euro for the rest of my stay.

However, after going through that, I met up with a girl from my program who we shared a taxi to the apartments and we each only paid 30 Euro a piece which was nice, because Amanda is in the Theatre program and we have a lot of the same interests and same ideas of spending time in Dublin on weekends. After getting to the apartments, I met up with my two roommates (or flatmates as they call them here in Dublin) and both Matt and Zach seemed like two nice guys that are in their own right are funny and interesting. I ended up finding out I'm sharing a room with Matt, while Zach has a room to himself if the other supposed member, Andres, of our foursome shows up by Friday this week. As for the apartment, the next post is the apartment pictures! ;)

After a couple hours of settling in, TV watching, and internet surfing, our groups decided to visit the shopping place Dundrum Town Centre (which is basically a big mall) and get some food and know the area. It was a very nice and interesting journey, which I plan to document further with my camera when I get to know it a bit more. I ate an interesting sandwich of ciabatta bread with mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, and chicken. I added a pop and muffin to it and realized further that Dublin's currency of Euros is rather expensive. It added up to be 10.50 Euro, which would be almost $13.25 for one meal! After our meal, we went to the grocery store in the centre called Tesco. At a first glance, and considering I've worked in a supermarket for almost 5 years, nothing in the grocery store makes sense where it is placed. Eggs aren't cold, food is labeled differently, and things I normally would expect to be priced that I know the name brands in alcohol are doubled! My first small shopping for 17.50 Euro consisted of this:

After we returned from the shopping, which consisted of a 5 min walk in the rain, we headed back to the apartments and took a couple hours to nap (I had been awake for almost a whole day by this point) before our night journey to the IES Centre and our first pub using the Luas (pronounced "Louis") train rail system. (I will update more on this system of travel, but it's a rather comfy ride to and from places and I've been told because our classes are not within walking distance, IES is paying for our passes to ride the Luas for free. That's about 48 Euro a month. EXCITEMENT for free travel options!) After the nap, I almost broke the electrical outlets as I was plugging in an adapter for the plugs here, I put in a surge protector which supposedly wasn't made to work unless you buy a converter for the voltage here in Dublin. Well, it basically fried, and we lost power for a little while until we found the circuit breaker, and now I have to be REALLY careful about what I'm plugging into the sockets. (I was even scared to plug in my laptop for it to charge!)

After our ride on the Luas and walk to the IES Centre (so we had an idea where to go tomorrow for our 2-day Orientation), we traveled to The Barge for our first pub experience. I got a pint of Guinness (which tastes much better over here but still isn't for me) and some chips (which is what they call "fries", potato chips are called "crisps") for about 7.50 Euro. The ketchup and mayo that I used with my chips tastes much better than home; the ketchup tasting like more of a tomato and the mayo more egg potent. I've been told they don't use a lot of preservatives in their food products here so they can spoil faster, but evidently they do taste better.

This event also made me realize how cool everyone in the program has been so far. We all have clicked rather well, some more than others of course. We had a mini get together after the pub visit in our apartment of seven of us just talking and hanging out while drinking and playing some "never have I ever" games. And now, I took some time to get this blog entry done so I can update everyone, since my shared room is a little occupied at the moment.

In the meantime, I should be getting some sleep... since it is currently 3:45am here in Dublin, and I have to get up at 9am to catch the 25 min ride on the Luas at 9:30am-ish to the IES Centre for Orientation at 10:15am. And, I hope this rain isn't bad because I heard it's pretty consistent this time of the year... Yay, for wet socks and shoes!

love and respect,
Christopher K.